GW Nursery

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Honey, I’m actually a lawyer, you know, the kind of person you’d hire to sue GW for all the awful crap they inflicted on you. Except you’d have no case.

Don't get smug. This is DCUM. We're all lawyers.

Yeah, so why are all these rich lawyers bitching about how wronged they were by an excellent hospital?! Once again, the entitlement is repulsive.

So rich women should hire outside medical professionals to ensure they and their babies actually receive appropriate medical care during recovery, got it. Very Malawi.

+1
if birth cost $1000 then maybe. but for the money they are charging all hospitals should be able to afford nurseries and sufficient nursing staff.

for my first i didn't want to have my husband at birth and the nurses told me "we need him to help". what? it seems that hospitals are estimating their staffing needs based on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of free help hours will be available. and then they charge an equivalent of the some the world's most expensive hotels.

Weird to build a model around the assumption that there are no single moms.

Single mothers have family and friends. What happened to, “It takes a village”? Hospitals are left carrying the weight because people apparently don’t have the support networks they used to. A bit similar to the predicament public schools find themselves in.

you are insane. we don't live in huts. people move a lot and their friends don't necessarily live in the area. i don't want to burden my friends with this and don't want to be constantly on hook to care for other people's babies .

besides, friends are not substitutes for professional services. do you friends clean your teeth, do your hair, vacuum your apartment? do you ask your friends to come to your hotel to change hotel towels? aren't they the village?

hospital bills are insanely huge - it costs more to spend a night at the hospital than to stay at NYC ritz suite for new year's eve. for that money absolutely preposterous and outrageous to expect that people bring their friends to shoulder the burden of care.

Come back down to earth. We’re talking about holding and changing healthy newborns. These are not “professional services.”

cleaning the room is also simple. should postpartum mothers and their friends do this?

Not in between patients obviously but I honestly don’t remember anyone cleaning my postpartum room in the 3 days I was there so what’s your point?

ok, how about taking out garbage and cooking? should we have kitchens in the room?

Are you arguing that nurses should do that? Because this debate is about what a nurse is supposed to help you with. Start a new thread if you’d like to complain about the hopsital’s non-medical facilities management.

your pony was that diapering was simple so it was not a "professional service". but it can be very tiring and dangerous in the state mother is in.

I want my baby to be in the nursery while I am recovering and only be bought to me when I demand it. please explain why paying 30k can not cover this.

Your insurance company paid 30K I’m guessing, not you. Because the US health care system is ridiculous? This is a WAY bigger issue than maternity care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

For what it's worth, at least one poster on this thread has related that she did not receive regular check-ins from the postpartum nurse assigned to her. Others have reported on this and other threads that when they asked for help, they were told that they needed to do whatever it was themselves or get their husbands to do it. I know several people who have delivered at GW who have been discharged with alarming jaundice levels in their babies and/or alarming postpartum symptoms (such as the headache and climbing BP a PP mentioned). I know ZERO people who have delivered at GW who said that it was a relaxing recovery period for them. And that's between people who delivered with the OBs and the midwives. Everyone I know was either very pleased with their L&D experience or at least not upset and traumatized by it, but those same people had miserable postpartum experiences.

I appreciate the idea behind things like getting rid of the nursery so that rooming in happens. I think that the principles in play are in the right place, but they seem to be taken to the extreme. If I had a baby at home and then proceeded to take prescription painkillers at home by myself while caring for my baby, literally everyone on this board would think that was a bad idea and would suggest that support was needed. Cops would be called. I could lose custody, if I did that.

[Anonymous]

You would lose custody for taking prescription painkillers as a new mom, PP? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

I personally don't think the lack of basic fall/suffocation/SIDS prevention for neonates is in the "life is not perfect" category. I place it in the "bare minimum I expect for modern hospitals" category. It's great that you had a good experience, but the real problems come when mothers are encourage to BF around the clock and fall asleep. Or if they can't even lift the baby out of the bassinet next to them due to c-section incision. Or just need to sleep to recover themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You would lose custody for taking prescription painkillers as a new mom, PP? Really?

Yes, if it incapacitated you to the degree you couldn't care for your baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Honey, I’m actually a lawyer, you know, the kind of person you’d hire to sue GW for all the awful crap they inflicted on you. Except you’d have no case.

Don't get smug. This is DCUM. We're all lawyers.

Yeah, so why are all these rich lawyers bitching about how wronged they were by an excellent hospital?! Once again, the entitlement is repulsive.

So rich women should hire outside medical professionals to ensure they and their babies actually receive appropriate medical care during recovery, got it. Very Malawi.

+1
if birth cost $1000 then maybe. but for the money they are charging all hospitals should be able to afford nurseries and sufficient nursing staff.

for my first i didn't want to have my husband at birth and the nurses told me "we need him to help". what? it seems that hospitals are estimating their staffing needs based on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of free help hours will be available. and then they charge an equivalent of the some the world's most expensive hotels.

Weird to build a model around the assumption that there are no single moms.

Single mothers have family and friends. What happened to, “It takes a village”? Hospitals are left carrying the weight because people apparently don’t have the support networks they used to. A bit similar to the predicament public schools find themselves in.

you are insane. we don't live in huts. people move a lot and their friends don't necessarily live in the area. i don't want to burden my friends with this and don't want to be constantly on hook to care for other people's babies .

besides, friends are not substitutes for professional services. do you friends clean your teeth, do your hair, vacuum your apartment? do you ask your friends to come to your hotel to change hotel towels? aren't they the village?

hospital bills are insanely huge - it costs more to spend a night at the hospital than to stay at NYC ritz suite for new year's eve. for that money absolutely preposterous and outrageous to expect that people bring their friends to shoulder the burden of care.

Come back down to earth. We’re talking about holding and changing healthy newborns. These are not “professional services.”

cleaning the room is also simple. should postpartum mothers and their friends do this?

Not in between patients obviously but I honestly don’t remember anyone cleaning my postpartum room in the 3 days I was there so what’s your point?

ok, how about taking out garbage and cooking? should we have kitchens in the room?

Are you arguing that nurses should do that? Because this debate is about what a nurse is supposed to help you with. Start a new thread if you’d like to complain about the hopsital’s non-medical facilities management.

your pony was that diapering was simple so it was not a "professional service". but it can be very tiring and dangerous in the state mother is in.

I want my baby to be in the nursery while I am recovering and only be bought to me when I demand it. please explain why paying 30k can not cover this.

Your insurance company paid 30K I’m guessing, not you. Because the US health care system is ridiculous? This is a WAY bigger issue than maternity care.

umm, yeah, but how much did i pay for insurance over many years? overall i pay almost 10k a year (yes, a lot of it comes from my employer, but then, my salary would be greater if they didn't sink so much money into this). so yeah, i am actually paying for it, just not as a lump sum in a single day.

and even if somehow i have magically gotten the elusive free lunch here, the bottom line is that hospitals get paid enormous amounts of money and yet are cutting corners on the most basic things putting mothers and babies in danger under an infuriating guise of moral righteousness in respect to breastfeeding and baby friendliness. and you are helping them with your blaming mothers for not having top-notch social support and ridiculous insistence that too expect the hospital to take care of the baby is somehow to be spoiled.

just because there are bigger issue doesn't mean this is not a big issue (we could all perish tomorrow in a nuclear cloud - so what?). i am still waiting for your explanation on why 30k is not enough to hire sufficient number of nurses so that reliance on mother-recruited volunteers is not necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

nobody is saying "hospitals are bad". people are saying that postpartum care in many local hospitals could be much better.

and we have all put this in perspective. none of us, i bet, goes around muttering about postpartum care 24/7. this is a topic about postpartum care at local (and it seems nation-wide) hospitals. so discussing this issue here is putting in perspective. then we will move on with our lives and won't think bout this for who knows how long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Honey, I’m actually a lawyer, you know, the kind of person you’d hire to sue GW for all the awful crap they inflicted on you. Except you’d have no case.

Don't get smug. This is DCUM. We're all lawyers.

Yeah, so why are all these rich lawyers bitching about how wronged they were by an excellent hospital?! Once again, the entitlement is repulsive.

So rich women should hire outside medical professionals to ensure they and their babies actually receive appropriate medical care during recovery, got it. Very Malawi.

+1
if birth cost $1000 then maybe. but for the money they are charging all hospitals should be able to afford nurseries and sufficient nursing staff.

for my first i didn't want to have my husband at birth and the nurses told me "we need him to help". what? it seems that hospitals are estimating their staffing needs based on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of free help hours will be available. and then they charge an equivalent of the some the world's most expensive hotels.

Weird to build a model around the assumption that there are no single moms.

Single mothers have family and friends. What happened to, “It takes a village”? Hospitals are left carrying the weight because people apparently don’t have the support networks they used to. A bit similar to the predicament public schools find themselves in.

you are insane. we don't live in huts. people move a lot and their friends don't necessarily live in the area. i don't want to burden my friends with this and don't want to be constantly on hook to care for other people's babies .

besides, friends are not substitutes for professional services. do you friends clean your teeth, do your hair, vacuum your apartment? do you ask your friends to come to your hotel to change hotel towels? aren't they the village?

hospital bills are insanely huge - it costs more to spend a night at the hospital than to stay at NYC ritz suite for new year's eve. for that money absolutely preposterous and outrageous to expect that people bring their friends to shoulder the burden of care.

Come back down to earth. We’re talking about holding and changing healthy newborns. These are not “professional services.”

cleaning the room is also simple. should postpartum mothers and their friends do this?

Not in between patients obviously but I honestly don’t remember anyone cleaning my postpartum room in the 3 days I was there so what’s your point?

ok, how about taking out garbage and cooking? should we have kitchens in the room?

Are you arguing that nurses should do that? Because this debate is about what a nurse is supposed to help you with. Start a new thread if you’d like to complain about the hopsital’s non-medical facilities management.

your pony was that diapering was simple so it was not a "professional service". but it can be very tiring and dangerous in the state mother is in.

I want my baby to be in the nursery while I am recovering and only be bought to me when I demand it. please explain why paying 30k can not cover this.

Your insurance company paid 30K I’m guessing, not you. Because the US health care system is ridiculous? This is a WAY bigger issue than maternity care.

umm, yeah, but how much did i pay for insurance over many years? overall i pay almost 10k a year (yes, a lot of it comes from my employer, but then, my salary would be greater if they didn't sink so much money into this). so yeah, i am actually paying for it, just not as a lump sum in a single day.

and even if somehow i have magically gotten the elusive free lunch here, the bottom line is that hospitals get paid enormous amounts of money and yet are cutting corners on the most basic things putting mothers and babies in danger under an infuriating guise of moral righteousness in respect to breastfeeding and baby friendliness. and you are helping them with your blaming mothers for not having top-notch social support and ridiculous insistence that too expect the hospital to take care of the baby is somehow to be spoiled.

just because there are bigger issue doesn't mean this is not a big issue (we could all perish tomorrow in a nuclear cloud - so what?). i am still waiting for your explanation on why 30k is not enough to hire sufficient number of nurses so that reliance on mother-recruited volunteers is not necessary.

Well you’ll be waiting for a long time because that 30K tag covers tons of lab testing for the newborn and salaries for all the professionals caring for you and the equipment and their maintenace and the people who have to be on standby for actual emergencies and overhead and legal fees because people constantly use etc. etc. I don’t pretend to understand hospital financials fully but it’s a lot more complicated that comparing it to a night at the Ritz (which at least one poster did).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

nobody is saying "hospitals are bad". people are saying that postpartum care in many local hospitals could be much better.

and we have all put this in perspective. none of us, i bet, goes around muttering about postpartum care 24/7. this is a topic about postpartum care at local (and it seems nation-wide) hospitals. so discussing this issue here is putting in perspective. then we will move on with our lives and won't think bout this for who knows how long.

I don’t disagree with you, but a lot of the posters were pretty categorical about their negative assessment of GW and I don’t think that’s backed up by that hospital’s stats. I understand the people get emotional about their birth experiences, but by objective measures it’s a good hospital.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Honey, I’m actually a lawyer, you know, the kind of person you’d hire to sue GW for all the awful crap they inflicted on you. Except you’d have no case.

Don't get smug. This is DCUM. We're all lawyers.

Yeah, so why are all these rich lawyers bitching about how wronged they were by an excellent hospital?! Once again, the entitlement is repulsive.

So rich women should hire outside medical professionals to ensure they and their babies actually receive appropriate medical care during recovery, got it. Very Malawi.

+1
if birth cost $1000 then maybe. but for the money they are charging all hospitals should be able to afford nurseries and sufficient nursing staff.

for my first i didn't want to have my husband at birth and the nurses told me "we need him to help". what? it seems that hospitals are estimating their staffing needs based on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of free help hours will be available. and then they charge an equivalent of the some the world's most expensive hotels.

Weird to build a model around the assumption that there are no single moms.

Single mothers have family and friends. What happened to, “It takes a village”? Hospitals are left carrying the weight because people apparently don’t have the support networks they used to. A bit similar to the predicament public schools find themselves in.

you are insane. we don't live in huts. people move a lot and their friends don't necessarily live in the area. i don't want to burden my friends with this and don't want to be constantly on hook to care for other people's babies .

besides, friends are not substitutes for professional services. do you friends clean your teeth, do your hair, vacuum your apartment? do you ask your friends to come to your hotel to change hotel towels? aren't they the village?

hospital bills are insanely huge - it costs more to spend a night at the hospital than to stay at NYC ritz suite for new year's eve. for that money absolutely preposterous and outrageous to expect that people bring their friends to shoulder the burden of care.

Come back down to earth. We’re talking about holding and changing healthy newborns. These are not “professional services.”

cleaning the room is also simple. should postpartum mothers and their friends do this?

Not in between patients obviously but I honestly don’t remember anyone cleaning my postpartum room in the 3 days I was there so what’s your point?

ok, how about taking out garbage and cooking? should we have kitchens in the room?

Are you arguing that nurses should do that? Because this debate is about what a nurse is supposed to help you with. Start a new thread if you’d like to complain about the hopsital’s non-medical facilities management.

your pony was that diapering was simple so it was not a "professional service". but it can be very tiring and dangerous in the state mother is in.

I want my baby to be in the nursery while I am recovering and only be bought to me when I demand it. please explain why paying 30k can not cover this.

Your insurance company paid 30K I’m guessing, not you. Because the US health care system is ridiculous? This is a WAY bigger issue than maternity care.

umm, yeah, but how much did i pay for insurance over many years? overall i pay almost 10k a year (yes, a lot of it comes from my employer, but then, my salary would be greater if they didn't sink so much money into this). so yeah, i am actually paying for it, just not as a lump sum in a single day.

and even if somehow i have magically gotten the elusive free lunch here, the bottom line is that hospitals get paid enormous amounts of money and yet are cutting corners on the most basic things putting mothers and babies in danger under an infuriating guise of moral righteousness in respect to breastfeeding and baby friendliness. and you are helping them with your blaming mothers for not having top-notch social support and ridiculous insistence that too expect the hospital to take care of the baby is somehow to be spoiled.

just because there are bigger issue doesn't mean this is not a big issue (we could all perish tomorrow in a nuclear cloud - so what?). i am still waiting for your explanation on why 30k is not enough to hire sufficient number of nurses so that reliance on mother-recruited volunteers is not necessary.

Well you’ll be waiting for a long time because that 30K tag covers tons of lab testing for the newborn and salaries for all the professionals caring for you and the equipment and their maintenace and the people who have to be on standby for actual emergencies and overhead and legal fees because people constantly use etc. etc. I don’t pretend to understand hospital financials fully but it’s a lot more complicated that comparing it to a night at the Ritz (which at least one poster did).

i compared to the night at the ritz and it's a very good comparison. are you aware what goes into maintaining the quality of service and amenities at a ritz? you also need to have safety, and people on standby etc etc etc. it's not a simple operation.

besides, there are many reports where hospitals charge like $400 for a roll of toilet paper. please stop pretending that hospitals perfectly allocate their resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

A good hospital? Check out its Leapfrog and Medicare rankings. Those suggest otherwise.

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

nobody is saying "hospitals are bad". people are saying that postpartum care in many local hospitals could be much better.

and we have all put this in perspective. none of us, i bet, goes around muttering about postpartum care 24/7. this is a topic about postpartum care at local (and it seems nation-wide) hospitals. so discussing this issue here is putting in perspective. then we will move on with our lives and won't think bout this for who knows how long.

I don’t disagree with you, but a lot of the posters were pretty categorical about their negative assessment of GW and I don’t think that’s backed up by that hospital’s stats. I understand the people get emotional about their birth experiences, but by objective measures it’s a good hospital.

[Anonymous]

Meant to say GW has poor rankings on Leapfrog and Medicare so just because DCUM thinks is a good hospital does not hold true in national rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we're talking about basic safety and fall prevention for very vulnerable patients (newborns). Fall prevention is a basic safety issue in hospitals. Leaving a newborn with a drugged/exhausted/post-surgery non-ambulatory mom is NOT safe. That's the whole point here. You're acting like nurses are babysitters; they're actually caring for TWO vulnerable patients. I mean, what would you think if the post-partum nurses were themselves on morphine, couldn't walk, had just gotten out of surgery, or hadn't slept for 4 days? Would you think they were fit to care for infants, or anyone?

This is such a great damn point.

No, it’s more hyperbole. You act like you were literally left alone after birth. Nurses at GW checked on me constantly. If you ask them to help you swaddle the baby or put the baby somewhere, they do it. My bassinet was RIGHT next to my bed. I didn’t have to hold the baby constantly. I guess the take-away is that people’s care needs vary because the anger about GW is not my experience at all.

And by your rationale, because you had a good experience others cannot have a bad one?

No, but just because people have bad experiences does not mean the hospital is bad. People have bad experiences everywhere, for all sorts of reasons, and adults know how to put that in perspective because life is not perfect.

nobody is saying "hospitals are bad". people are saying that postpartum care in many local hospitals could be much better.

and we have all put this in perspective. none of us, i bet, goes around muttering about postpartum care 24/7. this is a topic about postpartum care at local (and it seems nation-wide) hospitals. so discussing this issue here is putting in perspective. then we will move on with our lives and won't think bout this for who knows how long.

I don’t disagree with you, but a lot of the posters were pretty categorical about their negative assessment of GW and I don’t think that’s backed up by that hospital’s stats. I understand the people get emotional about their birth experiences, but by objective measures it’s a good hospital.

i believe that the most emotional person here is you. you happened to have great experience at GW and now you are upset that people are complaining. why, only 5 babies were dropped last year! why don't you bring your friends to help with the baby? etc etc. it's not that GW is bad comparatively, it's that many hospitals allocate resources in a similar manner - away from mothers and babies (while pretending its for their benefit) and toward lord knows what. the best explanation for your constant rationalization of this is that you loved your hospital.